Former city officials say downtown Walmart violates code

Retired city planner and former mayor joining with neighbors to battle the planned store

By JESSIE VAN BERKEL

Neighbors, the former mayor and a retired city planner are combating Wal-Mart's plan for a store on the edge of downtown, arguing the proposal would violate city rules.

The store would replace a blighted strip mall at 2260 Ringling Blvd. that is currently home to an Ace Hardware, a party supply store and a lot of empty storefronts.

Wal-Mart has proposed demolishing the mall and replacing it with a similar-sized supercenter. Both the city and Wal-Mart say that plan meets zoning and neighborhood compatibility requirements.

But former city planner Mike Taylor, who has rewritten Sarasota zoning code for the past 20 years, says they are wrong.

“I don't have any axe to grind one way or the other, I just know what the code says,” he said.

Wal-Mart must either tear down the nearly 100,000 square-foot strip mall and put a 15,000 square-foot building in its place, or it can keep 25 percent of the current building then demolish the other 75 percent and build it back to the same size of the original structure, he said.

The Alta Vista Neighborhood Association will ask city commissioners Monday to hold another hearing on the plan, where they can discuss their concerns about zoning and whether the store is compatible with the neighborhood.

“This is not really some holy grail crusade against Walmart,” former mayor Kelly Kirschner said, adding that it is about a failure to comply with the rules and an oversight by a “decimated” city planning staff.

If the commissioners do not agree to the hearing they will pursue the matter in court, he said.

Tim Litchet, director of Neighborhood and Development Services for Sarasota, said the zoning issues that the community raised are not new. Courtney Mendez, the planner handling the project, addressed them at the November planning board meeting where board members voted 3-2 to approve the project.

Susan Chapman was one of the Planning Board members who voted against the proposal, noting that the area requires small-scale development and a Walmart store is anything but that.

“I just thought the criteria were very clear and it didn't meet that criteria,” Chapman said. She declined to comment further, because the issue could come before the Planning Board again.

At the November meeting, both Wal-Mart and Mendez argued that because the proposed Walmart would be about the same size as the strip mall, zoning requirements in the area that call for small-scale commercial offices are moot.

The codes are intended to prohibit big-box stores next to a neighborhood of single-family homes, Taylor said.

Architect Jerry Sparkman, who works near the site of the proposed Walmart, said this project turns its back on the community rather than promoting a more walkable city.

The Walmart would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have trucks making deliveries at all hours.

“The size, the scale, the flow of traffic is all changing for the worse,” Taylor said.

Kirschner said he and others spent hours talking with Wal-Mart designers and planners about ways to remedy the situation. In the end, the store did not want to spend the money or time to make the changes, he said.

“Can this be done different? Of course it can be done different. This is their cookie-cutter box they put in,” Taylor said.

But the city's summary of Wal-Mart's plan notes the store made an effort to add awnings, color variations, columns and windows to improve its design.

And at the Planning Board meeting, Mendez said the store would have buffers to make it fit better with the neighborhood, including landscaping and a stormwater pond.

Wal-Mart spent a lot of time working with the community to develop its site plan and responded to concerns by moving the store close to Ringling Boulevard and making it more pedestrian-friendly, company spokesman William Wertz said in an email.

He also said the store will bring 250 jobs and revitalize the old shopping area.

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